Operations Manager - Birmingham Sort Centre

Relay is fundamentally reshaping how goods move in an online era. Backed by Europe’s largest-ever logistics Series A ($35M), Relay is scaling faster than 99.98% of venture-backed startups. Relay’s Mission is to free commerce from friction. Today, high delivery costs act as a hidden tax on e-commerce, quietly shaping what can be sold online and limiting who can participate. We envision a world where more goods move more freely between more people, making the online shopping experience seamless and accessible to everyone.

THE TEAM

• ~110 people, more than half in engineering, product and data
• 45+ advanced degrees across computer science, mathematics and operations research
• Thousands of data points captured, calculated, analysed and predicted for every single parcel we handle
• An intellectually vibrant culture of first‑principles thinking, tight feedback loops and relentless experimentation

The Role

Top-of-market salary, with above market equity in one of Europe’s top Series A startups. This role is the pathway to becoming a General Manager of your own Hybrid Sort Centre with up to 1 Million parcels a day capacity. You will own an entire shift at one of our fulfilment sites; the people, the throughput, the quality, and the continuous improvement of all three. You’ll lead 50–100+ operatives through high-volume, time-pressured operations where minutes matter and small deviations cascade quickly into missed deadlines and customer impact.

Think of it as running a logistics mission that resets every single day and you use the learnings of one shift to improve the next. If you’ve managed large field teams in logistics, distribution, manufacturing, transport, or the military then you already understand the tempo. If you haven’t worked in parcels or sortation before, that’s fine. Some of our best managers hadn’t either. What matters is how you think and lead.

What You Will Do

• Run shift operations end-to-end: people deployment, throughput targets, quality standards, and health & safety compliance
• Lead, motivate, and develop a frontline team of 50–100+ operatives; including onboarding, coaching, and managing performance
• Use dashboards and KPIs to identify problems early, make decisions quickly, and track whether the changes you make are actually working
• Build and improve SOPs, controls, and feedback loops that keep your shift running safely and efficiently. You won’t just follow them, but write them
• Own the end-of-shift handover; what happened, what’s at risk, what the next shift needs to know
• Collaborate across shifts with engineering, data, and ops leadership to solve problems that cross boundaries
• Stay calm and decisive during peak periods, outages, and labour gaps - triaging, containing impact, and restoring flow

Who You Are

You don’t need to have worked in parcels, fulfilment, or sortation. What you need is:

• Proven leadership of large teams (50+) of front line workers in fast-paced, physical operations — logistics, distribution, manufacturing, transport, military, or similar environments where on-time delivery and compliance are non-negotiable
• Reasoning ability — you think through problems methodically rather than relying on “how we’ve always done it.” When you walk into a new situation, you structure a response rather than freeze
• Resilience — when things break, you get calmer and more structured, not flustered. You’ve been through operational crises and came out the other side having learned something
• Metrics obsessed — You don’t need to be a data analyst, but you need to be able to look at a metric and decide what to do about it. You don’t need to design the metric, but you do need to understand, own and act on the metric
• Clear, direct communication — you can brief a team of 80 operatives at shift start and then present a problem to senior leadership in the same day
• Ownership mindset - You want to help build something meaningful, not just complete a shift and move on

Backgrounds That Translate Well

• Logistics & distribution
• Manufacturing & production operations
• Startups with a primary focus on operations
• Transport & fleet management
• Military — particularly NCOs and junior officers who led large teams under operational pressure
• Aviation operations & air traffic control
• Any environment where compliance, on-time execution, and managing large frontline teams are the core of the job

If you’re reading this thinking “I’ve never considered sortation but this sounds like what I do and am good at” — that’s exactly who we’re looking for. We are looking for people that will continuously seek improvement and have the bias to action to execute the improvements.

Our hiring process is fast. Initial screen (15 min), Hiring Manager conversation (90 minutes), 45 min will be an onsite interview immediately followed by a 45 min site tour where you shadow an existing shift manager, Final interview (45 min) -→ Decision and offer within 48 hours.

Who Thrives at Relay?

• Aim with Precision: You define problems clearly and measure your impact meticulously.
• Play to Win: You chase bold bets, tackle the hard stuff, and view constraints as fuel, not friction.
• 1% Better Every Day: You believe that small, consistent improvements lead to exponential growth. You move quickly, deliver results, and learn from every experience.
• All In, All the Time: You show up and step up. You take ownership from start to finish and do what it takes to deliver when it counts.
• People-Powered Greatness: You invest in your teammates. You give and receive feedback with care and candour. You build trust through high standards and shared success.
• Grow the Whole Pie: You seek out win-win solutions for merchants, couriers, and our customers, because when they thrive, so do we.

If these resonate, and you combine strong technical fundamentals with entrepreneurial drive, let’s connect. Relay is an equal-opportunity employer committed to diversity, inclusion, and fostering a workplace where everyone thrives.